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"When they allow a talk show host to play them like a two-dollar banjo, they demonstrate what kind of backbone they'll bring to the job later on, if we elect them. After they get elected will they continue to allow Jeff Crank to put a nickel in them and wind them up every Saturday morning?"

Barry Noreen, former columnist, Colorado Springs Gazette

Saturday, March 31, 2012

Have you had enough? I have.

“Have you had enough? I have.”

by John Alexander Madison

March 31, 2012

This week marks the end of the President’s 38th consecutive month of his re-election campaign. And for that we should be grateful for when he takes the occasional day-off from campaigning to actually show up at the oval office he creates another half a billion dollars or so in deficit spending. His government is, after all, totally out of control. But I suspect you knew that.

This past week he implored America to end oil company “subsidies.” During his tirade he repeated, more than a dozen times, his attacks on oil company subsidies and their “excessive profits.” The truth, of course, is that this President is “truth challenged.” (Call him a liar if you will, I’m just trying to be polite.)

The fact is there are not oil company subsidies. However, the U.S. tax code provides tax breaks for manufacturers including the oil and gas industry. That means manufacturers get “tax breaks” while still paying billions of dollars in taxes to the federal government. Charles Krauthammer, the brilliant, seasoned and articulate intellectual carefully analyzed the President’s speech and concluded that “if the oil company TAX BREAKS (subsidies in the President’s words) were eliminated for the next one hundred years that would be the equivalent of just four months of excessive spending by this President.”

Do you mean to tell me, John, that the President is just blowing more second-hand smoke up our collective, er, nostrils and perpetuating his attack on the free market economy and big business? Yes I do. This is another example of class warfare, pitting one American against another; seeking more government control over more and more aspects of our lives vs. free markets.

Regarding the “excessive profits” let’s put that into perspective as well. According to the most recent data compiled by the American Petroleum Institute, U.S. oil and gas companies made an average of (just) 6.7 cents on every dollar of sales in the third quarter of 2011, compared with 9.2 cents on the dollar of sales for all manufacturing. Based on this statistic alone, very clearly and accurately the oil and gas industry is anything but greedy and they are not earning excessive profits.

So what is the President’s motivation for these unwarranted attacks? Could it be that in yet another confidential moment, this time not caught by an open microphone, President Hugo Chavez told President Obama how “cool” it was to nationalize a country’s oil companies? That is not beyond the realm of possibilities. Will that be a part of the President’s agenda if we were foolish enough to grant him a second term when he “no longer has to worry about reelection?” It is entirely possible, even probable.

Speaking about profits, who owns America’s oil companies? The answer is America’s oil companies are owned by “a wide variety of individuals and institutions – ranging from individual IRA accounts to teacher’s pension funds to modest ‘mom-and-pop’ investors. According to a recent study just three percent of oil and gas company stock is owned by company executives. The study, compiled by two prominent economists, concluded that about 70 percent of the shares of oil and gas companies are held by institutional investors, especially asset management companies, and predominantly on behalf of middle-class American households who own shares through mutual funds, pension funds and retirement accounts…individual investors who manage their own portfolios and are not company insiders account for more than 20 percent of all industry ownership, which again includes significant numbers of middle-class households holding personal retirement accounts.” (per a Conoco-Philips report)

My view is if you envy the profits made by American business, instead of carping about it, buy some stock and share in the profits. Caveat emptor…stock ownership may lead to profits but can also, quite easily, create losses. Let the buyer beware.

Mr. President: Stop your anti-American, anti-free market economy rhetoric and stop your constant raid on our pocketbooks. Stop spending money we don’t have and stop printing more. Please, just go out every day and run for reelection on your record, including the stimulus plan which was a dismal failure, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will soon be deemed unconstitutional, and your free spending model of governance. Our national debt has ballooned to nearly $16,000,000,000,000 (trillion) almost overnight. That leaves you little to talk about except blaming what is “wrong with America” on everyone else. Creating wealth Mr. President, is a good thing, yet you have all but destroyed that dream for one or more generations to come, including my grandchildren. And for that I say shame on you.

EPILOGUE

Quiz, please nod your responses to the following questions:

Do you believe this President has proven to be totally unqualified for office?

Do you believe the President has all but destroyed our country as we knew it?

Do you believe the President is a hypocrite (after all, he voted for tax breaks before he opposed them)?

Do you believe the President is a good husband and father?

Do you believe Obamacare is unconstitutional?

Do you believe in American exceptionalism?

Do you believe the President does? (I wanted to give you a chance to nod your head from side-to-side.)

Do you want to give the President a second term? (Another chance)

You made plenty of promises the first time around, Mr. President, yet you achieved nothing.

Please explain to the American people why you deserve a second term…just one reason. I, for the life of me, cannot think of any.